Defense seeks to have 50 charges related to alleged sexual abuse of children dropped - Bluefield Daily Telegraph: News

http://www.bdtonline.com/news/youth-volunteer-indicted-for-alleged-abuse/article_12b87cfc-b269-11e4-ac43-471231ab2671.html
 
Did a pastor’s disclosure to police about reported sexual acts by a church elder on young boys violate the priest-penitent privilege, or was he simply following the state’s mandatory reporting law?

That is the question being argued in pre-trial motions filed in the Timothy Probert case.


Probert, 57, of Mercer County, is facing 50 charges related to alleged sexual abuse of children stemming from his time spent as a volunteer at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Bluefield and for the Working to Eliminate Child Abuse and Neglect (WE CAN) program.

In a pre-trial motion filed in the case, Probert’s counsel is seeking to have the charges dismissed on the basis that his pastor, Jonathan Rockness, violated the priest-penitent privilege when he told a West Virginia State Police investigator about disclosures involving Probert’s actions with young boys.

In the state’s objection to the motion, Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Kelli Harshbarger states Rockness and church elders were following mandatory reporting laws in order to protect children who were facing “a clear and present danger of being abused.”
,,,
"The disclosure made by Tim Probert to his pastor did not relate to any ongoing sexual molestation of a child,” the defense motion states. “Tim Probert made confessions of personal misconduct with respect to teenage boys, in many cases, thirty years in the past. The subjects of the confessions made by Tim Probert are in their early forties and thirties now. Some are in their 20s. None of the disclosures or confessions made by Tim Probert to his pastor relate to a child or a child who is currently being abused at the time of Tim Probert’s confessions to his pastor.”

The defense argues that the confessions made by Probert to Rockness were communications in “confidential meetings and discussions.”

“Mr. Probert was seeking forgiveness and restoration through the disciplinary channels of his church for acts of misconduct that occurred in many cases decades earlier,” the defense motion states. “This circumstance simply does not fit the criteria established by the Legislature to justify overriding the penitent’s confession to his pastor.”

Defense seeks to have 50 charges related to alleged sexual abuse of children dropped - Bluefield Daily Telegraph: News

See also:  Youth volunteer indicted for alleged abuse for the original reporting